Seeking out a spiritual path in life is often the last bastion of hope for those of us searching for meaning in how we live. Starting off on such a journey, or simply making one’s own way and determining which direction to head is what Kaelan Strouse offers with his books, coaching and spiritual retreats. Meditation has become a life-saving practice for me, so a spiritual guide and coach is nothing short of dazzling, hence Kae’s crowning as Dazzler of the Day here. He melds spirituality, sexuality, and self-empowerment into an authentic and genuine reconciliation of our minds and bodies. Check out his website here for a more detailed and fascinating look at his life’s calling, excerpted below:
Kaelan is a spiritual guide who has led meditations, coaching sessions, and yogic practices since 2008. He founded Ecstatic Self LLC during the pandemic of 2020; his client list ranges from CEOs of NFL teams to federal judges—from Ivy League tenured professors to leaders in healthcare startups.
He has written two books on personal growth and belonging (Journey to the Ecstatic Self & I Dreamt of Flight). Kaelan lived in a meditative ashram for 7 years, earned his advanced CRT 500 in yogic instruction, and has over 1/2-million followers on Ecstatic Self YouTube and other socials.
He has led corporate leadership and empathy workshops for top corporations like JP Morgan, TripAdvisor, KPMG, Bank of America, etc. He graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University and lives in Washington, DC with his husband and pets.
Surviving another year on this crazy-ass earth is no mean feat, even if most of us still living have done it for as many years as we’ve been here. Saying a great deal of nothing with a maddening cadence of words has become this blog’s stock in trade. On with this post-birthday recap of the week that I turned 49…
Singer, songwriter, producer and powerhouse performer Todd Alsup is one of those fantastic artists who puts on a show from soup to nuts, absolutely creating and expressing a sensational experience for the audience. Currently bringing the one-two punch of “Freedom: The George Michael Experience” and “Elton Undressed”, Alsup is channeling gay rock icons in splendid fashion, while introducing the world to his own brand of charm, talent and charisma. This marks his first Dazzler of the Day crowning. Check out his website here for further evidence of his brilliance.
I made it through the wilderness… somehow I made it through. Another birthday finished, assuming things go relatively well (at the time of this writing I am still a baby-like 48) it’s a day to take pause, and the only thing blue is the color of these salvia blooms. Let’s have a quiet Sunday morning, and bring that calm into the week.
This is 49, and it comes after a ferocious summer that took my back out, strained my neck, gave me a second go-round with COVID, and battered me down in numerous other ways unnoticeable to the naked eye. The body betrays us the older we get, even as we struggle to protect it.
After revisiting this date 49 times, one would think I’d have a better grasp of how things should go, of what I’m supposed to be doing. Strangely, with each passing year, I’m discovering that the older I get the less I understand – and there is growing wisdom in that realization and acceptance.
Today I turn 49 years old. I don’t quite know what to do with that, other than to play this song, and to pray. Yes – I pray. Every night. At every moment of doubt, at every moment of worry. Little prayers, little offerings, little exercises in superstition or faith and what’s the goddamn difference?
You wake to greet the brand new day Wake up, realize you’re late Rush out to make your plane Can’t find your keys again…
You need to reawake, now Listen to the words I’m saying in this line, and That your life will be just fine, and Your troubles do not stay They get replaced with good times Now you’ve got a great life Smile as you walk by Thinkin’ ’bout the day
Born of fear, born of trauma, born of need and desire and survival – we all come into this world in such similar ways – messy and wet and crying out of lonely desperation, clinging to whatever is immediately around us, grasping at something or someone to take care of us – for protection, for security, for comfort, for love. Some of us never learn how to stop crying. Some of us never learn how to start again.
This body, the only body I have ever known, the only body I will ever know, this shell of my physical existence, breaks down a little more with each passing year. The lithe and limber days of carefree, flexible, quick-to-bounce-back forgiveness calcify and become brittle at the turn of an almost-half-century. This body – it cracks and crinkles now, it whispers and laughs and collapses – it betrays this mind, disconnecting from what I think I can do, what I once could do, what I lost the ability to do… and today of all days I can barely formulate a coherent sentence.
It’s late, your legs won’t rest today Your body seems to ache Your mind will win the race Burnin’ by your sleep again
The light blooms from the sun The long dark night undone Another day of fun Waiting for some luck to come
Should I fear this year then? This final year of my forties, death knell to any far-fetched and barely-feasible semblance or pretending of youth? Maybe… maybe. Strangely it’s not fear I feel, nor the rush to get on with it. It’s really just another day, just another year, and the way we mark the days and years is just some silly system of numeric designation, as if 49 means something more than 48 or less than 50. There is nothing at all different today from yesterday – even if nothing is at all the same.
You keep hoping for a day When things will go your way When all decisions have been made And karma’s finally found its way
The drinks, they pass the time They help me to unwind The guilt is killing me Inside your eyes
It’s gray, the rain pours down my face The tears become erased A cleansing of my face Splashing down into my grin
My eyes become alive A feeling left behind A hidden world untied Creating all you see today
The clouds, they went away Forever, did I wait And karma finally found my plate And now I’m smiling by the sun
And so I step gingerly back into the river of life, the banks on which I have probably paused more than most – shy and skittish, scared and scarred from that moment of birth, and never quite having been able to get completely over it. I watched more of it go by than I ever took part in, and though it’s not regret I am experiencing, there is a sense of loss, even if I can’t be mad about it. It’s never helpful to be angry at who you used to be. Instead, I offer thanks, even for those days when I didn’t want to be part of it, when I swam to the shore, coughing and spitting out the anxiety, crying out the salty worry, spent and exhausted from trying to swim against the current. All these silly mixed metaphors have me feeling a little muddled, and what I originally wanted to be a contemplative birthday post has turned into something slightly different. The unexpected accident, the messy inconvenience of being human. What I most wanted life to be – something pretty, something perfect – is precisely what a human’s life can never be.
We’ll meet again someday We’ll smile and then I’ll say: “When it rains, it pours all day Until love can find its way”
Now, listen to the words I’m saying In this line that your life will be just fine, And troubles, they do not stay, They get replaced with good times Now you’ve got a great life, Smile as you walk by Need to reawake now LIsten to these words that I’m saying in this line And your life will be just fine Troubles, they do not stay They get replaced with good times Now you’ve got a great life Smilin’ ’bout the day…
And I heard that there’s a special place Where boys and girls can all be queens every single day…
In my daydreams and night-dreams, I can dance without the annoying tinge of a bothersome and aging back. I can sing without the heaviness of loss or lamentation. I can ride a pink pony into the summer dawn, bounding along shores of ocean and gliding over edges of sky. Summer is so largely imagined, so grandly envisioned. Summer… so much in my head.
I’m up and jaws are on the floor Lovers in the bathroom and a line outside the door Blacklights and a mirrored disco ball Every night’s another reason why I left it all…
God, what have you done? You’re a pink pony girl And you dance at the club Oh mama, I’m just having fun On the stage in my heels It’s where I belong down at the Pink Pony Club
All sparkle of sun and sea, all shine of dew and drops, all summer sweetness and soft sighs. A melancholic meter keeps steady time – the hollow cadence of minutes and hours droning on beneath the welcome heat of the sun, already different than it was in June, already less. And so we dance, and we keep on dancing, and the pink pony prances…
I’m gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club I’m gonna keep on dancing down in West Hollywood I’m gonna keep on dancing at the Pink Pony Club, Pink Pony Club
Chosen by Kamala Harris to be her Vice President and running mate, Tim Walz immediately added some bite and vigor to an already enthusiastic ticket. He was an early favorite of Andy’s, thanks to his down-to-earth way of speaking and blunt way of dismissing the likes of that now-wonky Republican Party (he’s credited with coining the ‘weird’ designation of Trump and his cronies, all of whom more than live up to the billing on a daily crazy basis). Today he earns his first Dazzler of the Day, because way back in 1999 as a high school teacher and football coach, he helped form his high school’s first Gay-Straight Alliance, providing support and help for LGBTQ+ students, and a vital illustration of allyship at a time when we hadn’t even heard of the word. If a football coach had ever done that when I was in school, I can’t imagine how different things might have been.
Seeing old things from new vantage points is one of my favorite things about having friends visit. When Missy was here this summer she stayed in our guest bedroom, where we’ve kept the blinds closed to the front yard for privacy, even if we don’t spend much time there. She raised them in the morning, and when I walked in and saw the room in brighter form, it made all the difference. I didn’t realize how much light was being blocked out, even with the white and diffused format of the blinds. Such a simple change, such an unexpected realization. I’ve been keeping them open ever since, and it’s added a lightness to that end of the house that I didn’t fully fathom was missing in all this time.
More than that, I got to look outside into the front yard, and the little bit of landscaping that was there from the time we moved in – starting with this Japanese maple (please do me the courtesy of ignoring the soaker hose that remains unburied). Earlier this spring, I pruned the bejesus out of the maple, cutting out two-inch-thick limbs and opening it up to show off its wonderful branches and gorgeously-mottled bark.
A peaceful little corner, it inspires calm and contemplation – the perfect nook from which to watch summer transform into fall.
Harbinger of fall, and signifier of the end of summer, this Helianthus comes into bloom just as some of us have grown tired of summer’s happy monotony. It makes me sad to say it but I never quite got into the summer spirit of things, try as I might. I don’t remember having a stretch of hot and sunny days where I simply sat out by the pool listening to a summer playlist, idly popping into the kitchen for a BLT or some other glad food fare between swims. Of course I managed some of those moments, but not enough to bake in any lasting memories.
Maybe some summers aren’t meant to be remembered.
This Helianthus, even amid its post-rain wetness and wildly uncultivated form, is a reminder that summer still lingers – it simply burns differently in its last few weeks. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to step out and see if I can’t find a little ore summer magic.
She’s been in more movies than you probably realized, and she shape-shifts so indelibly into each role that it’s a testament to her talent that we don’t see always see her as the star she is. Catherine O’Hara earns her first Dazzler of the Day thanks to a career of perfect performances, including the upcoming reprise of her role in ‘Beetlejuice’. She was Kevin’s mother in ‘Home Alone’ and the magnificently-dramatic Moira in ‘Schitt’s Creek’ – and for all the years in-between she’s inhabited characters that were as dotty as they were endearing (see her down-to-earth turn in ‘Temple Grandin’). Throughout it all, she retains a plucky sense of humor about her business, while honing her craft with elevated skills gained through sheer survival.
We won’t be dragging our coquette theme into the next season. As Emi correctly predicted, this household has grown tired of the pink, and this fall will be a complete turnabout into a very different realm, and while I’ve been assembling ideas and images for it, not even I am quite ready for the dramatic shift about to take place. That means you’ll get to attend the tumultuous journey with me in relatively real time, which always proves messy and moody and every-once-in-a-while magnificent.
Fall came to mind this morning when I stepped out to leave a letter in the mailbox; for the first time in a few months, there was a decided chill in the air – a marked delineation separating yesterday’s mugginess from this start of something else. I thought I was ready for the turn but it still came with a jolt. As for what’s on the agenda for the beginning of the burning season, I’ll throw out just a couple of foreboding hints as to what’s coming this fall: it will not be demure, and it definitely won’t be considerate. Fasten your seatbelts…
“It was not as if I was not myself – oh no, I was myself, I was my other self, the self that wishes to carry on a secret dialogue with all that is evil in human nature. Some men do not struggle with this in themselves. They seem to have a certain grace. They are happy – or rather, they are content. They swing tennis rackets in the sunlight and get the oil checked regularly and laugh when the audience laughs. They accept limits. They are not interested in what might come up from the dark, cold hole of human possibility.” – Colin Harrison
“In my experience, men and women who have a kind of brutal fortitude have been made that by a sequence of events, until the person passes beyond a point of no return. They learn that life requires the ability to coldly stand pain of one kind or another… They will do what is necessary to survive; they will conceal and protect their vulnerabilities, except from those who cannot hurt them. Above all, they will press their advantage when it presents itself.” – Colin Harrison
When a COVID cough has me up all night, and I’m isolating in the attic, where I’ve been in solitude for the past five days, this cradle song – ‘Yurikago No Uta’ – is the only spot of solace or semi-comfort there is to be found. It’s a traditional Japanese lullaby, often sung to babies to help them sleep. Physically, I am feeling better – a slight side-effect has me in the bathroom a bit more than I’d like, but if it means I don’t die from lack of breath, it seems a fair trade-off. Still, I wasn’t expecting the plunge back into social isolation to take such an emotional toll, and I understand it’s the culmination of the weeks and months of this summer, which had me helplessly hoping that the anniversary of Dad’s death might bring about some sense of closure, some somewhat-happier-ending of that dreadful year of firsts, all the while knowing such an arbitrary deadline of grief was a fever-dream. Born out of desperation and survival and coping, it was a wish that I knew in my heart was foolish, but that same heart couldn’t do anything but hope it might prove true. When at least it came and went, and there was no real relief, no erasure of emptiness or loss, it proved a different sort of chill than when it first happened. A lonelier chill. And then I placed my finger on the root cause of the periodic crying spells that have unexpectedly cropped up at the strangest times this past week: loneliness.
Loneliness in the very real sense of being isolated and alone – when I spent my days and nights secluded in the cozy little attic room I made for our home a few years ago – a room that now functioned as bedroom, office, dining room, living room, reading room, lounging room, dressing room, every room – where largely-sleepless nights were only partly drowned out by the hum and occasional rattle of the window air conditioner, where rain would sound almost melodically on the roof right above my head and rather than sour the mood it would give me comfort because it meant maybe the rest of the world would slow and stop while I was gone instead of carrying on in cherry, sun-drenched summer fashion. A selfish notion, but sickness brings out our selfishness, as much for survival as for pettiness.
Here, in this little room, I fitfully try to sleep without any comfort of Andy beside me. Here, I sip on tea and lots of water and take the occasional meal – eating alone without a husband or companion. Here, I study the bouquet of flowers my Mom left on the front porch along with some breakfast rolls and a dessert, touched by her love and care, realizing how much a son still needs his mother, and shocked at how sad this bout of sickness has suddenly made me feel.
What a ludicrous scene I have painted: a man who will turn 49 years old in four days, weeping like a baby and listening to a cradle song, looking at the animals on the cover of the video and remembering his childhood bedroom. Is it sacrilege to wish it away if it meant a lesser sting of missing it? Is it wrong to wish any of our days away?
Well.
The folly of youth.
Or the folly of middle age… assuming this is somewhere near the middle. We never really know, do we?
My therapist told me at our last session that just about everything had aligned for me to have a mid-life crisis at this moment. I looked at her incredulously, my jaw literally dropping, then said perhaps a little testily, “Umm, when I started seeing you four years ago it was because I was having my mid-life crisis, so I thought I already did that.” She laughed a little, and I fear it’s because I thought there would only be one.
“You know,” I continued, “I survived the one and I’d rather not do it again.”
She acknowledged all the work that went into those early months of therapy, and was rather flippant and nonchalant about another one coming, when my quizzical look of concern must have registered, because she then said I shouldn’t worry about it because I was at a place where I could handle it in a healthy manner.
Huh.
That was when I gave myself a rare internal pat on the back.
It’s one thing to pretend I’m strong and great and amazing – quite another to even partly believe it on the inside.
The week was marked by a turn – a few turns in fact – the first being the turn of the sun as we veer closer to fall. The second being a turn in my health, as I came down with COVID and missed out on a wonderful wedding weekend with dear friends. And the third turn being this cup of hot matcha – the first since the chillier days of early spring, and a foreboding signal of the fall to come. This week will mark the turn of ny life from 48 to 49 (see this birthday wish list before time runs out, or this one). At such turns, perhaps its best to stand still and pause, and go through the previous week in our typical Monday recap…
Madonna celebrated her 66th birthday, and in case some of the new people aren’t aware, I still love her. So if you’re going to trash her, or say how much you used to love her but don’t anymore, put that shit on your own social media page, not any of mine. Seriously.
